Briton who gave Japan its anthem

Almost completely forgotten during the bitter battles over Japan's anthem is that the origins of this contentious piece of music can be traced back to John William Fenton, bandmaster of Britain's 10th Foot Regt, 1st Bn.

Fenton arrived in Japan in 1868, the year Japanese modernisers overthrew the medieval shogunate and replaced it with a constitutional monarchy.

His regiment, later renamed the Royal Lincolnshire Regt, had come to protect the small foreign community in Yokohama from samurai diehards bitterly opposed to the foreigners' presence on their soil.

During his three-year stay Fenton established Japan's first military brass band, ordering the instruments from London and composing what was intended as its first national anthem.

Historians record that 30 cadets from Satsuma, in Japan's far west, were staying a short walk from the park where Fenton's band rehearsed and performed. Fenton also became the instructor for the Japanese group, whose average age was 19.

Nationalists force the song into Japanese public life, demanding that Kimi Ga Yo (His Majesty's Reign) be played at every school ceremony. Tokyo's local government insists that teachers stand and sing what is essentially a hymn to the emperor or face fines and suspension.

But a large minority associate the tune with the militarism and deification of the emperor that drove Japan to the catastrophe of the Second World War.

Even Emperor Akihito stepped into the debate last year, saying that it was "not desirable" that respect for the anthem be imposed on reluctant Japanese.